


Hot Chocolate and Liquor (I Need a Drink)

by Lavender_Menace



Series: The Six [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - No Sparrow Academy (Umbrella Academy), Angst, Dead Ben Hargreeves, Gen, Good Parent Grace Hargreeves, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Missing Scene, No Incest, Paperwork, Past Drug Addiction, Past Murder, Season/Series 03 Speculation, Sibling Bonding, The Hargreeves Siblings Deserve Better, ben is dead, cover-ups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26379202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavender_Menace/pseuds/Lavender_Menace
Summary: April 2nd 2019, the remaining Hargreeves tie up loose ends (Klaus-centric)
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, The Hargreeves Family, The Hargreeves Family & Grace Hargreeves, The Hargreeves Family & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: The Six [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925680
Comments: 4
Kudos: 217





	Hot Chocolate and Liquor (I Need a Drink)

They arrived on April 2nd 2019 to an empty tomb of a mansion, echoing and cold. By the staircase Grace had booted up and greeted them warmly, leading them down to the kitchen for a snack as though nothing had ever happened.

There was no sign of Pogo.

No sign of Reginald. 

No apocalypse.

After everything that they'd experienced the anticlimactic calm had been surreal. The six of them had followed their mother's measured footsteps down the halls of their childhood home, politely averting their eyes as Diego wiped tears away. 

Five had led, with Vanya close to him. Diego and Luther followed side by side, while Klaus trailed after Allison, his fingers ghosting over the sleeve of her dress as though he was afraid of getting lost. Allison bore her brother's clinginess well, eventually grabbing and holding his bony hand in hers as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

Both of them were shaking, but neither said a word.

Mom brewed hot chocolate uncannily quickly, and with more skill than Klaus had seen from professional chefs. Miraculously his flask had survived their battle and time travel, after pouring a hearty dose of the contents into his hot chocolate Klaus generously donated the rest to his siblings. Vanya, Allison, and Five accepted his offer—some more gratefully than others—while Luther and Diego declined. 

Instead Diego had turned to the counter and said something completely unprecedented.

"Mom, why don't you come sit down with us?" 

Their mother was widely considered to be unflappable. Klaus had seen her wrist deep in her childrens' guts, standing between knife wielding teenagers, and facing her own demise, all with the same demure expression on her face. But now she paused 

“Sure” She said finally, smiling, her blank processing expression turning to the familiar bright smile that she wore so often. “If it makes you kids happy.” 

It did.

She placed a plate of perfectly arranged cookies at the center of the table before sitting beside Diego, her back straight, prim and proper, while the six of them silently drank their hot chocolate. It felt like a tiny little revolution. 

Allison had been the first to stand. Her graceful fingers had ghosted over her wedding ring as she explained. 

“I need to talk to Claire.” 

Five had nodded immediately, and the others followed suit. Klaus gave his sister a smile and two thumbs up before returning to his drink. He wondered idly if he would be able to summon Raymond, it was possible that he had died in the fifty-six years they’d travelled to be here. If he were alive he would be in his late eighties. Klaus hoped he’d had a good life, for Allison’t sake. 

As Allison left he switched the mug in his hands and grasped the hem of Vanya’s oversized shirt, rolling the stitches between his pointer and thumb  _ hello _ .

Vanya looked at him, at first surprised and then soft, she said nothing but scooted closer. Across from him Diego met his eyes as Luther watched Allison go. Her heels made a quick anxious  _ tap tap tap _ as she walked away.

“What are we going to do now?” Klaus broke the silence. “Now that it’s all over do we just go back to what we were doing before? Go our separate ways?” 

The remaining siblings shifted uncomfortably, glancing at each other. 

“I don’t really have anything to go back to.” Luther said, running a large finger over the table’s wooden surface. “The last four years I spent in this time were all wasted on another of Dad’s lies. It’s not like I can just go back up to the moon and do nothing.” 

Luthor’s expression was caught between a rueful smile and a grimace. The look on his face was all but alien to the rest of the siblings, who had rarely seen Luthor look anything but neutral, annoyed, or smug. Klaus wondered if the ability to move his face was something that he’d learned on the moon, or if he’d picked it up during his time as an underground boxer who worked for the mafia. 

And wasn’t that still surreal. 

“I don’t have anywhere to be either.” Five chimed in, staring at his hot chocolate as if it held all the secrets of time and space. He seemed shocked by the prospect. After decades of single minded survival, years of assassinations, and two weeks of mad running to stop the world from ending, it must have been outright bizarre to find himself with nothing else to do. 

“You could join me!” Klaus interjected, unwilling to let the mood sour without at least an attempt of a joke. He pointed at Five. “I have a lovely little alley behind Dunkin Donuts that’s just lovely this time of year.” 

“Why didn’t you invite me to your alley?” Luthor’s face turned to a more familiar annoyed expression.

“You wouldn’t fit.” As he spoke Klaus jolted slightly as Vanya’s small hand shot out, wrapping around his wrist.

“You were living in an alley?” 

“Not really.” He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t really live anywhere Vanya. It’s just a nice alley.”

Vanya looked as though she doubted that. 

"I think I'm still first chair." She murmured, there was something heavy in her voice. Klaus wondered if she really even wanted the position. "But I also think I probably still killed Leonard." 

There was something matter of fact in her statement, a resignation to accompany the guilt. 

"That doesn't matter." Luther frowned. "He was evil."

If only it was that simple. 

"Were your fingerprints on any of those knives?" Diego asked, his expression thoughtful.

"No, but there should be some in the house …. And in his car." 

“Ours would be too then.” Diego said, drawing one of his knives and fiddling with it thoughtfully. “Allison, Five, and I all went to his house to look around.”

Klaus frowned, glancing about the room before he remembered that the presence that he was looking for wasn’t there. If Ben wasn’t around then he’d have to think for himself. Vanya’s hand was warm on his clammy skin. 

“Remember when we were kids, and Dad would send Ben into a room with all the bad guys so he could ‘take care of them’?” He used his free hand to make air quotes. “We kind of committed murder all the time and never faced consequences for it. Why should we now?”

It was a horrible thing to say, arrogant and callous and extremely typical for the Hargreeves family. His siblings nodded uneasily. The room felt colder.

“How did Dad make all of that go away?” Klaus continued. 

“He had a lot of connections.” Luther ventured, his mug dwarfed to the comparative size of a shot glass by his giant fingers. “Between him and Pogo they could just sort of make  _ anything _ go away. I think he had connections with the government somehow.” 

“Do you think we could inherit any of those connections?” Vanya raised her head, pushing hair out of her face. She was so pale that her eyes seemed black against the whiteness of her skin, even in the warm light of the kitchen. 

“Maybe.” Luther looked at Diego as if he was expecting a challenge, but Diego simply whittled at the edge of the table, his expression conflicted. Klaus doubted that their tentative plan sat well with their brother’s zealous sense of justice, and he was grateful to Diego for the restraint that he had shown so far. After their time in the 1960s, his experiences in the psychiatric hospital, his failed attempt to save Kennedy, and _ whatever _ had happened with Lila—Klaus really was confused about what had gone on there—must have exhausted him. 

Either that or Mom’s presence had mellowed him out. 

Speaking of Mom.

“There’s a form in your father’s office that can be used to deal with casualties. Once filled out it can be submitted electronically to an anonymous government agent who then proceeds to clean up any loose ends.” Her smile was like the ones shown in toothpaste commercials. 

“Well fuck.” Five’s time stopping the apocalypse really had done nothing for his manners.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Really they hadn’t known if it would work—they still didn’t know for sure—but it was better than doing nothing. After they had brought her up to speed Allison had put it well.

“It’s a good first step.” 

So they crowded together in their deceased father’s office, their voices hushed as though they were still children under Reginald’s watchful eye. Above them the unmarred portrait loomed, unyielding and perpetually disdainful. 

“I wonder if he was ever happy.” Vanya murmured, looking up at the painting as Luthor opened the file cabinet. Allison perched against the desk her eyes on Klaus as Klaus in turn watched Vanya. 

“I doubt it.” Five responded coming up to stand beside their sister. “Whatever else he was, Reginald Hargreeves was a terminal malcontent.” 

It was a grim pronouncement for a man who had ultimately committed suicide, but certainly not untrue. The terminal malcontent and his seven little natural disasters, spinning out of control at every opportunity. 

Six.

Klaus wrapped his arms around himself, his right hand resting on his left shoulder  _ Hello _ .  _ Sky Soldiers _ .  _ Hello Sky Soldiers _ . 

Luthor made a satisfied noise as he found the folder in question, drawing out the form and placing it on the ostentatious hardwood desk. At the door their mother watched silently, her default serene smile cemented to her face. Five took the paper, scanning it clinically as he held one of Reginald’s fountain pens in his hand. 

It looked expensive and Klaus wondered how he’d missed it during his first looting of the office. It had been only days ago technically speaking, but for Klaus nearly four years had passed. The siblings who had once been exactly the same age down to the hour were now staggered across a few years’ worth of experiences. 

Physically Klaus was the eldest, but mentally Five had half a decade of trauma over the rest of them. Sometimes Klaus caught his brother’s eyes and those decades seemed especially apparent. 

“We had forms very like this at the commission.” Five’s voice was high pitched and childish, but his intonation held the heaviness of his age. “The field agents use them to account for accidental collateral damage, it’s pretty standard paperwork. This one has a CIA stamp but otherwise it’s nearly word for word.”

For a moment the siblings were silent. The fabric of Allison’s dress slipped across her knees as she shifted, Diego leaned forward, peering over Five’s shoulder. 

“Creepy.” He pronounced, long hair falling down to brush his cheek. Klaus wondered if he was going to shave it all off again now that they were all back. “Did you have to do that a lot?” 

“No. I was never sloppy enough to need it.”

Klaus wanted a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked in three years, nothing, not even pot. After being spat out into 1960 he’d relied too much on Ben’s manifested abilities to get high, and after everything else cigarettes had hardly seemed worth it. Once Keechie had joined their group and started using charisma and psychobabble to push them all towards clean living Klaus had written nicotine off entirely to avoid losing control of the nebulous but extremely enthusiastic spiritual collective that had congregated around him. 

But the cult wasn’t there anymore.

Ben wasn’t there anymore.

He settled for biting his lip and mentally going over what he remembered of their father’s alcohol selection. At this point in life his memory was shot, but some things stuck out with obsessive clarity. He knew that there was top shelf vodka and gin behind the bar, scotch in the cabinet, ecstasy in his unicorn plushie, oxy in the infirmary, and a razor blade taped to the inside of the light fixture in the upstairs bathroom. 

He’d always had a good memory for escape routes, it was what had made him a good lookout in their childhood exploits. 

They filled out the paperwork in short order, and handed it to their mother to deliver. Even Five couldn't figure out who it would go to, but it was integrated into Grace’s programming and they collectively decided to trust her on this.

When they’d finished Allison hopped off the desk in a flurry of crinoline, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor. 

“I’m going to get changed.” She said fingering the material of her skirt. “And then I need a drink.” 

Klaus smiled

“Way ahead of you.” 

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

They congregated by the bar. Klaus had poured for Vanya first before measuring out a shot for Five and himself. Diego and Luther hung back, looking at the bottles of liquor warily. Luther’s experiences with alcohol were limited to the one night days before the apocalypse, and if he’d had any feelings about that night he had yet to share them. Diego on the other hand had enough experience to know that he was better off if he avoided drinking in excess.

And he wasn’t shy about sharing his opinions.

“Really Klaus?” He looked disappointed, judgemental but not angry. 

“I already fell off the wagon Di, I might as well.” Klaus took the shot, Five and Vanya followed as Allison entered the room.

Her hair was pulled back and her clothes were much more modern.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you wear a t-shirt in years.” Klaus commented as she sat down. Their sister had changed into light wash jeans and a mustard yellow top. It was a sharp contrast from her extremely fashionable bespoke hollywood wardrobe, and the gorgeous dresses that she’d worn during their time in the past. She looked nice and Klaus wondered if he should follow suit. Wearing black felt right but he was getting chilly. 

He took another shot instead.

Diego finally shrugged, sitting beside Klaus at the bar and motioning Luther to follow him. Behind the bar Five rummaged for a moment before popping back up with a satisfied expression and a green bottle. He poured himself a generous amount before sliding the bottle towards Allison and Vanya. Klaus could smell the familiar pine-y scent of gin. 

He poured himself another finger of vodka before passing the bottle into Diego’s waiting hand. 

“We should make a toast.” He said, mostly to fill the silence. Even surrounded by his siblings he felt alone, bereft of Ben’s familiar presence. 

“To what?” Luther asked, looking to Klaus as though he were expecting an order. For a man who had been raised to believe that he was a leader Klaus realized that Luther was absolutely most comfortable when following directions; whether the trait was a result of nature or Reginald’s grooming he couldn’t tell. 

“To Ben.” Vanya piped up, firm and confident in a way that she would have never been before. Klaus nodded.

“To Ben.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a lot of odd headcanons and wishful thinking rolled up into a slightly dissociated ball. I mostly wrote it on my phone at work and I'm thinking of continuing it even though I don't really have a plot  
> comment if there's something in this universe you'd like to see I guess


End file.
